Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

Mid-July in Utah and the heat has settled in with permanence. The kids have found summer. Ethan is working his ice cream shop shifts and coming home with the slightly dazed expression of someone who has been around other teenagers for four hours, which seems to require a period of recovery. Mason has been doing odd construction jobs every Saturday for various neighbors, accumulating a summer of small projects: a gate that needed re-hanging, a garden bed that needed extending, a deck board that needed replacing. He keeps a list on a paper in his room. He charges fairly and he always finishes. He is ten and he already has a reputation in the neighborhood as the kid who does good work.

Lily's horse drawings have become a series. She has been drawing the same horse in different settings for two months: the horse in a field, the horse at a mountain, the horse in a kitchen for reasons she has explained to me and which I have not fully understood but which I respect. She showed the series to Grandma Denise on Pioneer Day and Denise said: you should title them. Lily said: I already did. The kitchen horse is called Helper. I said: does the horse help in the kitchen? Lily said: no, the horse watches. This is the most Lily thing she has ever said and I am writing it down.

Sunday prep this week: the midsummer audit. The freezer has nineteen meals, which is comfortable for mid-July. I prepped eight more: four bags of pulled pork marinated overnight and then slow-cooked this morning, and four bags of white chicken chili made at room temperature because white chicken chili can be assembled raw and cooked directly from frozen if you start it early enough, which I discovered by accident in June when I forgot to thaw a bag and cooked it anyway. Sometimes the best discoveries happen that way: by forgetting to thaw something and having dinner anyway.

The pulled pork and white chicken chili take up most of my Sunday energy, but I have learned the hard way that stocking the freezer with dinners and leaving mornings to chance is only half a plan. This apple cinnamon oatmeal has become the quiet anchor of our prep day — I make a big pot at the end, portion it out, and suddenly the whole week has a soft landing every morning before anyone has to think too hard. It is the kind of recipe that does not ask much of you, which is exactly what you want after a day of slow-cooking and assembly-lining freezer bags.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 20 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
4 cups water (or milk for a creamier result)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 medium apples, peeled, cored, and diced (about 2 cups)
2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Optional toppings: chopped walnuts, a drizzle of honey, a splash of cream

Instructions

Cook the apples. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the diced apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir to coat and cook for 3–4 minutes, until the apples begin to soften and smell like fall.
Add the oats and liquid. Pour the water (or milk) into the saucepan with the apples. Add the salt and stir to combine. Raise the heat to medium-high and bring to a gentle boil.
Simmer until thick. Stir in the oats, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 8–10 minutes until the oats have absorbed the liquid and the mixture is thick and creamy.
Finish and serve. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Taste and adjust sweetness if needed. Serve immediately with your choice of toppings, or portion into containers for the week ahead.
To reheat from the fridge. Add 2–3 tablespoons of water or milk per serving and microwave on medium power for 90 seconds, stirring halfway through, until hot and creamy again.

Nutrition (per serving)

Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal — The Sunday That Stays With You All Week